The picture continues to darken for press freedom in Central Asia as a court in Kyrgyzstan this month closed down a critical broadcaster for “sarcasm and mimicry” and sentenced a blogger to probation for snarky Facebook posts. Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan high-profile journalists have reported disappearing social media pages, cyberattacks and harassment.

And lawmakers in both countries are taking steps to tighten government control over the press.

A district court in Bishkek ordered the closure July 9 of April TV – a Russian-language outlet that broadcast on YouTube and published news on social media – ruling in favour of prosecutors who argued that the channel’s use of sarcasm, mimicry and expressive speech “undermined state authority,” local media reported.

The channel “negatively impacts people’s psychological state and society in general,” Judge Tolondu Samakov wrote in his decision. “Additionally, the derision, journalists’ sarcasm, collages, and caricatures … are insulting to the civic honour of the people and to the person of the nationally elected president of the Kyrgyz Republic.”

The decision represents a setback for free speech, the channel’s lawyer Akmat Alagushev said in a July 10 interview with Current Time TV, which is affiliated with RFE/RL.

“Essentially, the prosecutor’s claims are that you must not in any way criticise the state,” he said.

April TV’s closure marks another turn of the screw in President Sadyr Japarov and security chief Kamchybek Tashiev’s crackdown on criticism that has recently also witnessed journalists interrogated and imprisoned, and the news outlet Kloop booted from the country.

Japarov, however, has strongly rejected the suggestion his administration is suppressing free speech.

“In our country there will never be pressure on freedom of speech,” he said in a July 5 interview with Kabar news agency. “Criticise us how you want. We can take criticism fine.”

April TV was originally founded by former Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev in 2018. The channel first ran into trouble with the authorities after Atambayev fell out with his successor, President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, and police raided April TV’s offices in 2019, seized their equipment and cancelled their broadcast licence.

After Jeenbekov was ousted by the 2020 revolution, April TV regained its license and cut ties with Atambayev in 2022. In recent years, the outlet focused on YouTube and social media where it frequently aired opposition voices and stood out for sardonic humour aimed at officials, including Japarov and Tashiev.

Prosecutors brought suit against April TV this spring and based their case during a June trial on a few examples of their newscasts and experts, one of whom testified “those who live in rural areas and shepherd boys” might take the channel’s sarcasm as fact, local outlet Kaktus reported.

A week before the decision came down, the State Committee for National Security, which Tashiev leads, interrogated at least seven current and former April TV employees, including one who hadn’t worked there in years, Kloop reported.

“It’s most likely some sort of psychological pressure,” Dimitri Lozhnikov, the channel’s director, told Current Time TV, adding he believes the authorities may try to bring criminal charges against him and others.

The interrogations of April TV staff echo the interrogations of five current and former Kloop employees last month, according to the outlet, which now operates in exile. Two remain detained.

Additionally, on July 8, the same district court in Bishkek sentenced blogger Kanyshay Mamyrkulova to four years of probation for Facebook posts in March mocking authorities’ rhetoric about the border deal with Tajikistan, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz service reported. She had been held in jail for more than three and a half months. 

Japarov weighed in on the case in his July 5 interview. Her posts were provocations, the president said, “pouring oil on the fire between two governments. That’s not free speech.”

Against that backdrop, the Jogorku Kenesh, the Kyrgyz parliament, approved a pair of bills that critics say would drastically increase state control over the press.

The “Media Bill,” if Japarov signs it, would require all media published online in the country to register with the state and give the cabinet of ministers the sole authority to set registration requirements.

“This will mean that all undesirable media that write any critique or any alternative opinion simply won’t be registered and won’t be able to post on their sites,” Bishkek lawyer and journalist Semetey Amanbekov told Current Time TV on June 25.

The bill was originally proposed in 2022, but vehement protests from civil society prompted Japarov to form a committee with members of the media that drafted compromise legislation. That version was initially introduced this year, but on June 16 a parliamentary committee scrapped the compromise and lawmakers passed June 25 a bill nearly identical to the first version, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s Russian service reported.

A second bill, which Japarov signed into law June 11, gives the Interior Ministry the power to impose fines of up to $229 on individuals and $743 on entities for spreading “false or untrustworthy information.” Supporters say the law is necessary to stop the spread of fake news online, but civil society groups warned that it could be used as another government tool against critics, Kloop reported. 

Despite the setbacks, independent press remains in Kyrgyzstan. Online outlets Kaktus, 24KG and Vesti all provide robust reporting and publish voices critical of the government. 

In Kazakhstan, the harassment of journalists, though not definitively linked to authorities, emphasises that the press there remains under considerable pressure.

The Kazakh government too wants more rules for journalists. The Ministry of Culture last month posted new regulations for public comment that would introduce fines for extremist, libellous or false content posted online, require the media to mark official government responses in their articles and require foreign media to have registered representation in the country, according to Kursiv Media.

“What it’s all coming to is that journalists must publish official information and everything that’s not official isn’t in line with reality and journalists must in every way possible promote the government’s policies,” Diana Okremova, the director of the Media Legal Center in Astana, told RFE/RL June 27.

Last August, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law that established government media monitoring and expanded registration requirements, prompting criticism from civil society groups.

Other forms of censorship are less official. 

Gulnara Bazhkenova, the editor-in-chief of Orda, a Kazakh news site often critical of the government, said in a June 10 video that she, her employees and the company have been harassed and cyberattacked since the beginning of the year after she declined to turn the publication over to a state-run organisation.

Meanwhile, the social media pages of two independent journalists who run popular YouTube channels about current events, Lukpan Ahmedyarov and Vadim Boreynko, disappeared from Facebook and Instagram on July 7 without explanation. Both sites are owned by Meta. Ahmedyarov’s Instagram page was restored July 10, local outlet Vlast reported. 

“I don’t believe that some private person, some ordinary guy, just for nothing would spend time doing that,” Ahmedyarov said.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.